| Summary: | October 7, 1989 -- East Germany's Erich Honecker pulls out all the stops in staging huge celebrations for the German Democratic Republic's 40th anniversary, including the grand military parade shown here. As the GDR's armed forces file by crowds of subdued East German citizens, a cast of visiting dignitaries -- including the leaders of all the Warsaw Pact nations -- provides a twilight glimpse of the communist bloc on the brink of extinction. Just hours after this parade concluded, anti-government protests broke out across East Berlin, and massive demonstrations soon engulfed the country. Twelve days later, the Honecker regime was history. This is the actual GDR television broadcast of the event -- news coverage which the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called a masterpiece of disinformation.
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